Goodreads

Release date: May 7, 2024

Publisher: Simon & Schuster

Genre: Mystery/Thriller

Synopsis:

Detective Chelsey Calhoun’s life is turned upside down when she gets the call Ellie Black, a girl who disappeared years earlier, has resurfaced in the woods of Washington state—but Ellie’s reappearance leaves Chelsey with more questions than answers.

“I stayed up late into the night turning the pages until I learned the truth of what happened to Ellie—and gasped when Jean delivered a truly jaw-dropping twist.” —Jessica Knoll, New York Times bestselling author of Luckiest Girl Alive and Bright Young Women

It’s been twenty years since Detective Chelsey Calhoun’s sister vanished when they were teenagers, and ever since she’s been searching: for signs, for closure, for other missing girls. But happy endings are rare in Chelsey’s line of work.

Then a glimmer: local teenager Ellie Black, who disappeared without a trace two years earlier, has been found alive in the woods of Washington State.

But something is not right with Ellie. She won’t say where she’s been, or who she’s protecting, and it’s up to Chelsey to find the answers. She needs to get to the bottom of what happened to Ellie: for herself, and for the memory of her sister, but mostly for the next girl who could be taken—and who, unlike Ellie, might never return.

The debut thriller from New York Times bestselling author Emiko Jean, The Return of Ellie Black is both a feminist tour de force about the embers of hope that burn in the aftermath of tragedy and a twisty page-turner that will shock and surprise you right up until the final page.

Review:

I absolutely love a missing persons story, I never seem to tire of them but I love when the missing person returns even more so this one sounded right up my alley and it was! I was hooked from the start, of course I wanted to know where Ellie had been and who had kept her for two years but I was also very invested in Chelsey as well. She was such a well developed character, really all the characters were well drawn and the way her past shaped her as a detective was so interesting and heartbreaking. This one is pretty dark and disturbing and the psychological aspects on both Ellie and Chelsey were examined in detail making for some chilling reading. There are multiple viewpoints and the audio version had a terrific cast of narrators so if you like to listen to books I can highly recommend that version. Hearing parts of this out loud gave me serious chills and made this one all the more memorable than it already was. If you want a solid and twisty suspense this was excellent.

Overall rating: 4/5

Thanks to the publisher for my review copy.